Long overdue update on documentary.

Perhaps, before I started this project, I should have asked someone who’d already made a documentary how long it usually takes. But I didn’t, and it’s probably a good thing. Had I known I’d still be working on it three years later I might have been scared away. As it is, here I am. I am very close to finishing, which is the truth, but I’ve said that before, and it was the truth then, too.

Late last spring, I finished a very respectable rough cut. I had two screenings here in Brooklyn for friends and a few professional filmmakers who also happen to be friends, and the feedback I got was extremely helpful . . . which meant that I realized how much work there was left to do. Then I took about eight months off to mitigate the damage done by a lousy, dishonest contractor and finish our house renovation. And I trained for and ran my first (and probably only) marathon – the NYC marathon – go New York! And moved into said house and unpacked and did all the rest of the things a mother does who has two young kids who start school and get sick and need to be fed and watered and dressed and undressed and bathed constantly.

A few months ago I picked up where I’d left off, and it’s been great. The break gave me a new sense of clarity and perspective, and renewed my determination. I’m back working with my editor, Hannah Vanderlan, who is the absolute best (she’s bound to win the MacArthur Fellowship any day now), and what we’ve broken apart and put back together a dozen times is beginning to take shape yet again.

I will not hazard a guess at when this will be finished, but when it is, I will shout from the (virtual) mountaintop, “I’m done! It’s finished! Come gather ‘round people, wherever you roam, and watch the magical intersection of life and technology!”

For now I’ll simply share random thoughts about both the content as well as process of making the documentary.